Marlins end show ‘The Franchise’ a week early because of terrible season

This season has been nothing shy of a tremendous disappointment for the Marlins. After bringing in Ozzie Guillen and several high-priced free agents to play in their brand new stadium, Miami is currently dead last in the NL East and more than 20 games out of first place. It initially seemed like their mix of colorful personalities and winning potential would make for great television in Showtime’s original series “The Franchise,” but the latter portion didn’t work out as planned. As a result, the show will be ending a week early.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the Marlins fulfilled their agreement of eight episodes by airing a special preview episode back in April just after Guillen made his controversial comments about Fidel Castro. The final episode was supposed to be on August 29, but instead Wednesday will mark the end of the season.

“There was an option to do more but given the state of our season, it was decided that the original 8 would suffice,” Marlins president David Samson told the Post in a text message.

The show had some entertaining moments like Ozzie’s f-bomb festival before the first game of the season, but there’s something about a team with a 55-67 record that has fallen incredibly short of expectations that makes for poor television. Better luck next year — for both the Marlins and “The Franchise.”